Bass Bath: unquestionably the highlight of the fest.
Photograph: Rémi Chauvin/Museum of Old and New Art

What brings a person to the edge of the world to “celebrate the dark” in temperatures that wouldn’t be out of place in your vegetable crisper? If, like me, you are as committed a fan of thermal underwear as you are of pagan themes, doom metal and experimental sound art, the answer is not complex.

If you’re not, then I suspect the appeal of Dark Mofo is rather more elusive, but judging by the enthusiastic crowds at the festival’s third iteration, plenty of people were prepared to dive into the deep, dark night.

Assessing on sight whether or not a person has “normal” or “ordinary” interests, especially in this era of normcore fashion, is fraught with danger. There’s nothing to say the windcheater-wearing dad figure checking out a nightmarish sculpture with a “Pretty good!” nodding smile isn’t, in fact, the world’s biggest sludge fan. But there are few things that buoy the heart like watching a family unit on their way to see an avant-garde light installation and hearing the young girl bellow “YEAH, WINTER SOLSTICE!!” as she barrels along the darkened street.

And that, in a funny way, is one of the most heartening things about Dark Mofo; the festival – like its summer equivalent, Mona Foma, as well as Melbourne’s White Night and Vivid in Sydney – is a truly egalitarian art experience (and it’s no surprise that it, like the aforementioned, rakes in mountains of tourism dollars for its host city and state).

On my way to Hobart for Dark Mofo’s final weekend, I was steamed about a recent “experimental theatre” performance I’d endured, which trotted out the usual hallmarks of the form – interpretive dance, nudity, sneering pop culture references, fake poo – in a way that felt both insulting to the viewer and profoundly conservative.

At Dark Mofo, on the other hand, the truly experimental is on offer to anybody who sees fit to experience it; in this way, it’s a deeply generous act of curation. Like some Boschian agricultural show, children blink at otherworldly sculptures and run at laser art with their fists held aloft; grownups stumble, exhilarated, out of a giant cold storage facility stacked to the rafters with monolithic subwoofers.

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Byron J Scullin + Supple Fox’s Bass Bath was unquestionably the highlight of the fest. A five-minute (or so) sonic spelunking expedition that offered nods to everything from anime classic, Evangelion, to Kabbalistic symbolism, the Bath was a transformative experience. Depending on where you stood in the space (I was cleansed on five occasions), the bass wavelengths quite literally washed over your body; at one point I thought my throat might actually explode. Most times I descended into paroxysms of delighted laughter. Like Roy Neary being delivered the five tones by the Mothership in Close Encounters, days later I can still hear Bass Bath in photocopiers and fluorescent tubes.

It wasn’t the only Dark Mofo piece that stayed with me. I was moved almost to tears by Patricia Piccinini and Peter Hennessy’s The Shadows Calling, specifically The Offering, a tiny newborn creature in a nest of fur, the sole sculpture visitors were allowed to touch – better still, we were allowed to hold it. Like the subject of one of Piccinini’s photographs, I gazed adoringly at the little goblin thing, touching its tiny, translucent ears as though it were my own offspring.

‘Like my own offspring’: Patricia Piccinini’s and Peter Hennessy’s The Shadows Calling. Photograph: Rémi Chauvin/Image Courtesy of Mona (Museum of Old and New Art)

The searing two-piece sludge outfit The Body tore the venerable Odeon theatre a new one, with Chip King’s vocals recalling (appropriately, given the night is dark and full of terrors) the sound of a Baratheon family bonfire. They set the scene for a more contemplative set from Little Rock doom merchants Pallbearer, whose alternately downbeat and triumphant chugging amid a forest of dry ice and green and purple follow-spots conjured up an intense Advanced Dungeons & Dragons session. “A+,” I texted a friend sitting opposite me. “Would buy a hoodie with a druid on it.”

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The following night at the same venue, My Disco challenged The Body for Dark Mofo MVP status with a blistering tour de force that, coupled with pin-thin red and white spotlights, was so intense I had to wear sunglasses for the final half hour.

A bracing morning walk to North Hobart to plunge into the liminal spaces of sound art came courtesy of Envelop(e). Julian Day, Mick Harris, Jason James, Christina Kubisch and Elizabeth Veldon offered refuge from the cold by way of sound and light installations. And refuge was often welcomed; there’s no better place to wear a screen-accurate Night’s Watch cloak than Hobart during the year’s longest nights, even if it weighed heavy on my baggage limits.

On the last night of the festival, a huge crowd thrilled to The Burning of the Ogoh-Ogoh creatures, accompanied by a rousing Deep Forest-esque rave-up and dancing druids – Balinese Hinduism by way of Rock Eisteddfod and Blue Oyster Cult album art. As the deep-sea fish effigy began to burn (filled with the fears Hobartians had scribbled on gold paper), a tiny child on his mother’s shoulders behind me cried, “What’s happening, Mr Fish?!” Mr Fish’s embers soon ascended and the crowd scattered, as though spooked by the ghostly horn of Anthony McCall’s Night Ship, which crossed the bay a final time, sweeping its spotlight across the night.

Reading for burning: the Ogoh-Ogoh, whose teeth are spiked with the fears of festival-goers. Photograph: Vanessa Ritchie/Image courtesy of Mona and Dark Mofo 2015

Once The Burning was complete I walked to Dark Park with the other nightcrawlers for a final look at Bastiaan Maris’s Fire Organ, only to find the magnificent beast breathing her last fiery breaths; next door, the Bass Bath had liquefied its last eardrums. I walked back through the freezing wind to Salamanca and the Peacock Theatre, where Nick Tsiavos and friends’ fourteen-hour vigil of song, Immersion, was well underway.

As their exquisitely beautiful, occasionally liturgical performance filled the space – seemingly cut straight from an ancient wall of sandstone – the audience of tourists, ancient music experts, jazz stars and sleepy children received a sacrament of sound.

Drifting off to sleep in my icy hostel room just before the solstice (my birthday, and helpfully noted in the Dark Mofo program at 2:38am), I heard Bass Bath and Immersion ringing in my ears, and just like that little sprite, I thought, “YEAH, WINTER SOLSTICE!!” and gave thanks for Dark Mofo. Long may this testament to the longest night reign.